Water from a Rock
by Zwerven
Summary: Alfred's fallen into depression over so much anti-American sentiments, especially the popularity of his own people criticizing him. Another nation takes notice when he comes to visit him, and tries to help coax a little hope back into him. Estonia/America


He didn't want to get up anymore.

His eyes were fixated on the bathroom door, some shoddy hotel in he couldn't even remember what country anymore, they all looked the same, and he laid on the bed in his crumpled suit. He _should_ go take a shower, yes, it wouldn't be the worst of ideas but he didn't feel like _getting up_. What was the point of it all? Tomorrow he'd be going home, no one else would notice his disheveled look, no one would notice the dead look in his eyes...

Alfred tried _so hard_, so hard just to get out of bed in the mornings when he had to. It used to be that around his fellow nations, he could just brush off their comments, their scowls and strange looks, because he knew he was still _awesome_.

These days, not so much. Every little flicker of the eyes, every little stare, it made his stomach dry heave. They didn't, and they couldn't, know how much effort it took for him to keep a meaningless smile on his face during the day. Now that his time with others and his time alone were slowly starting to merge—he'd spent a good portion of the meeting just staring into space with a frown and _no one said a thing_-he tried to think of how things would be when he got back to his own soil.

If only his own soil wasn't the very problem. _America_ was Alfred's problem. So many judgmental voices ringing loud and clear, he could hear them in his mind all the time. Some even stuck, even followed him here, criticizing every little decision he made. They told him Arthur was right when he yelled at him, that Ludwig was right saying he was just full of fantasies, that even Ivan was right when he said he didn't deserve being the land of hope. All of these nations, they'd poured so much into him. Alfred could tell that now they were just disappointed, feeling he failed their children, _his_ adopted ones, and he could feel their predator gazes whenever they looked at him.

He wanted so much just to run, to hide, to border up his country... It stuck to him then, clinging on to the bedsheets. Matthew had been born the same way he had, raised almost identical, but maybe what they said about twins kept apart wasn't true. They didn't grow the same way, because Matthew didn't have anyone looking at him, criticizing, _yelling_, and he could do anything he wanted, bar up his own country and never let anyone come or go and...

Matthew would be fine. He wouldn't then be imprisoned in a land where nobody liked him. America's enemy finally was itself again, not the way it had been back during the Civil War when they'd been split up. No, it was every man, every woman, ever _child_ against _him._ At least Texas stuck with him, no matter how many times it was splattered with tears he kept his patriotic state close. He knew he could lay here for hours on end, just staring and musing and dealing with the angry voices—dealing wasn't the right word, maybe _cowering_-and he'd only close his eyes to sleep as the sun started to creep into his room.

It was a dull schedule, full of emptiness and depression that hadn't eased up. It got worse since the financial crisis-that's when the voices that wouldn't go away started—and every day they seemed to get louder and harsher.

It took him a moment, over the screaming that wasn't there, to realize that someone had been knocking on the door. He lifted his head meekly, looking at the door, wondering if he should even answer. Even if it _was_ something important... Why should he work so hard for a land that didn't appreciate him anymore?

Managing to push himself off of the bed—he felt so weak lately, he'd stopped working out, stopped _eating_ much at all—he shuffled over to the door. Before, he would have fret over his appearance, the messy hair and the unbuttoned blazer but he just didn't _care_. Without even looking through the peephole, he opened the door, the deadbolt still latched as he peered into the hallway. He had to look down a bit to notice the other, and his lips curled into a small frown.

It was the other spectacled nation, Estonia, the former Soviet slave and his stomach soured thinking of Ivan at a time like now. He just looked so well put together, so composed, and Alfred raised an eyebrow wordlessly at his guest.

"U-umn. Hello? Mister Jones?"

He looked hopeful at something, and Alfred turned slightly to unlatch the door so he could open it wider. "Yeah? What do you want?"

The American's voice was deadpan, wondering briefly if the other was here just to make fun of him since it seemed to be everyone's national past time.

"Well..." Eduard started off slowly and carefully, looking away at the beige carpet in the hallway as he spoke. "See, Raivis had been playing with my computer, and he managed to get some sort of virus on it... It's kind of locked me out, so I was... Wondering if maybe you'd let me use yours quickly to download something?"

Alfred couldn't even force a smile, bitterly reminding himself that the only reason someone would want him was to bail them out of their own problems. Nobody could help themselves anymore, he was expected to help and fix everyone else when nobody even bothered to care he was broken.

"Right... I didn't bring it..."

The blonde Baltic was then looking at him, _past_ him, noticing the leather laptop case sitting on top of a desk while he wondered if maybe he'd done something to upset the other. He gave a meek smile before looking up at Alfred, where his smile effectively turned to a worried frown.

"Alfred?"

Pulling away from the door, hurrying back into the confines of his room, he took a seat on the edge of the bed. Estonia came into his room cautiously, closing the door behind him as he did. There were some articles of clothing strewn on the floor, something that he found uncharacteristic of America. It was then that he noticed that it looked more like Alfred had _given up_ in the middle of getting undressed, not that he interrupted the other. He stood in front of the other, the significantly smaller country kneeling down just before him.

He reached his hands up, taking the glasses with no objection from Alfred, pulling them toward himself. They were specked with dried tears, something he'd seen a lot of himself back in the day. The Estonian took them, taking them and cleaning off the smudges with delicate fingers before looking back up at Alfred.

There were tears already welled up again in the corners of his blue eyes framed with long golden lashes, and his lips were wavering before he spoke.

"Why are you here still? I said I can't help you!"

Eduard folded the legs of the glasses, setting it away from them on the bed before sitting up on the bed beside him.

He placed one hand on Alfred's shoulder, his other reaching into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief. Even though he offered it, Alfred didn't take it, although he didn't try to escape from the European's hand either.

"Alfred... What's wrong?"

He wanted to respond with 'what isn't', but he felt the familiar sour feeling in his empty stomach that prevented him from speaking. He couldn't even force a smile, not anymore, he was too tired, too exhausted. He just wanted Estonia to _leave_, to stop looking at him with that pitiful look in his green-blue eyes...

"Alfred..."

"You wouldn't understand."

Maybe he sounded like one of those teenagers who were so quick to pile hatred on him, but he felt it was true. There was no way some tiny land that hadn't been through as much as he had could know anything, or even sympathize properly because of the fact.

"You could try..."

"..I-I..."

He stuttered, turning toward the other. He couldn't even see now without his glasses, nor through the blurry shield of tears. This was how he spent most of his time, desolate and crying, and now with someone else there he just wanted a _hug_.

"N-nobody... Nobody likes me."

The shock on Eduard's face went unnoticed by Alfred, because the American was too busy reaching out blindly to grab onto his jacket and pull him closer.

He buried his face in the European's clothing, trembling and just glad for the warm body that was there. Eduard placed his hand awkwardly on Alfred's back, feeling almost as strange as he would have if it'd been Ivan to make a sudden dive for comfort. To see a grown man grab so desperately for him, it made him freeze up.

"...That's not true, Alfred..."

"It is! All of you! Even all... all of my own people!"

Holding him a little closer, Estonia realized he'd just been wrong.

Alfred only _looked_ like a grown man, it was so hard to always remember that he wasn't. Eduard even was a good few hundreds, if not thousands of years older, but he'd taken so long to grow and mature and he wasn't as big as the other, not as a nation and not as a person. It was what _everyone_ forgot about him, that he was so young, that he was just trying his best...

"All of you! All of you should just take your people back! They hate me and I don't want them anymore! I'm so sick of it, every day, hearing how much they all hate me, I don't care, I don't have any people as far as I'm concerned!"

The Estonian just shook his head, letting the other go limp in his arms with his anger and depression. He tried to stroke some of his hair back, trying to take care of him as tenderly as someone would to their child.

"That isn't true, Alfred... There's plenty of people who love you..."

"Like who! Whenever anyone leaves my country they don't even say where they're from! They don't want to come back! N-nobody wants to stay, nobody's.. happy..."

Eduard swallowed his breath, trying to tilt Alfred's head up so he could speak to the other man. He shook his head, placing a hand on his cheek as he did.

The American looked so downtrodden and lost, as if he didn't even remember the last time he had someone so non-threatening near him. There was weariness on his face, and the Estonian tried switching to English to get his attention, rather than the same mother tongue all nations shared.

"Alfred... They're just spoiled brats. They don't know what it's like to have to work and toil for the justices they have... They were given that freedom since birth. The people who do come to your country, who _want_ to, almost every single ancestor of those people who criticize you now... They all knew how special you are. To them... To all of us who ever watched our people leave to be a part of you... We do trust you."

Alfred's eyes flickered upwards just for a moment, straightening his back as he tried to sit back up.

"For a lot of us, your home offered things that we should have been able to give our people, but couldn't... So to see them come to you and be happy... Really, Alfred. I'm sorry that... Maybe some people just expected a bit too much from you. You're still so young... Not everyone dislikes you though, I think you're pretty... 'cool'..."

There was something else preventing him from responding very coherently, something that made him just stare at the Estonian before taking in all of his words.

"Y-your accent..."

Quickly, one of the Baltic's hands flew to his lips, looking away while he covered his mouth. He became self-conscious, wondering why he'd been so compelled to speak in a tongue he didn't use very often other than having thought it may have been comforting.

Alfred reached up, tugging lightly on the hand, trying to uncover his lips. It took another few moments for him to get it, to realize why it had sounded so odd. Every European he spoke to, they either spoke so funny in English he could hardly understand or they had some vague trace of Arthur's tongue. Not Eduard though, the Estonian sounded _American_.

"N-nah, it's okay, you can speak..." He tried to coax the other, and Eduard allowed him to pull his hand away.

"I'm sorry, am I just being too... too..."

"...No, no, j-just... Say something else."

"Are you okay, Alfred?..."

"...Why do you talk like that? Y-you don't sound like Arthur or... ...you sound like me. K-Kind of..."

Eduard offered a weak smile as he pulled the American closer. "My president... He was born in Sweden, when.. a lot of people moved there, but then he moved to America. He was raised there... I've been spending a lot of time with him lately, naturally..."

"He... he was?" It was the second thing to come to his mind, right after 'you have a president?', but he was a bit shocked as the Estonian nodded again.

"And he's a wonderful man. I'm not just... saying that since it's what everyone says about their government. That's why I know all these people that say things they shouldn't about you... They'll learn, Alfred."

He could tell there was a slight slip into more of an Estonian-laced accent, but it didn't bother the American. He rested his face against the other's neck, trying to listen to each of his words and wanting to believe them.

"You just can't give them a reason to think that they're right. You'll prove them all wrong."

Eduard placed a hand back on the other man's face, trying to tilt his head so he could make sure he saw those blue eyes as he spoke again. It was important, he felt, to let the other know that someone still believed in him.

"To be an American, it's to not give up, right? With everyone in the world saying you can't do something, you can't walk on the moon or you can't fight against oppression... It's to prove them _wrong_. An American is a proud thing to be. They'll understand one day. You can show them that."

Alfred was slowly nodding, he couldn't remember the last time anyone ever tried to give him a pep talk. If just _one_ nation could see it...

"You'll do it, Alfred. You'll show everyone the American way, and we'll all be amazed because you'll show us there's harmony in the world still. Your people just need something to believe in."

It'd be a slow path, that much even Eduard could see. Alfred decided right then, though, if there was _any_ way to do it, he would. No matter what would happen, he'd just ignore the voices and manage to squeeze water from a rock and show the world what American pride was, starting with the homeland.

As long as the Estonian would be there to help him.

* * *

kink meme fill, the summary is pretty much the prompt in a bag. Yes, it's entirely true by the way, the Estonian president has an American accent in English. And whenever I roleplay as Estonia, if you get him talking about America, I play him with almost a schoolboy crush on him. 'OMG AMERICA IS SO AWESOME I WANNA BE JUST LIKE HIM ;v;', etcetera. xD; so there ya go.


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